bag skate

n. in hockey, a team practice made of repetitive, strenuous skating drills and sprints, usually without pucks. Also as a verb. Subjects: English, Sports & Recreation

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Citations: 1993 Don Campbell Winnipeg Free Press (Manitoba, Canada) (Nov. 23) “Jets feel cold sting”: Under the cold and watchful scowl of head coach John Paddock, the 75-minute workout ended with another painful and exhausting “bag” skate of nearly 15 minutes. 1995 Brian Henley Chicago Sun-Times (Dec. 17) “Oilers, Lightning Reach Trade Stalemate” p. 24: He hauled out a “bag-skate” stick for the 54 minutes of torture. What’s a bag-skate stick? “When they’re going to work your bag off, you get a stick with no tape on it,” Buchberger said. “It slides easier across the ice.” 1999 Brian Hanley Chicago Sun-Times (Dec. 24) “Hawks fed up with Mironov’s subpar fitness” p. 101: Bag-skating is the hockey term for keeping the pucks in the bag and usually entails length-of-the-ice sprints. 2003 St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri) (Mar. 2) “Fact Check: “Bag Skate”; Hockey 101 For The Fan” p. C8: A legendary sign of trouble when players arrive for practice is that there are no pucks out. That means it’s a “bag skate,” a vigorous, sprint-heavy, all-skating workout that is often punishment. The exact origin of “bag skate” could not be found. Rarely do teams have “bag skates,” or “get bagged,” at this time of year because of the crush of the schedule. Some coaches have “deceptive bag skates.” They’re no less punitive but they include pucks and are filled with high-speed, aerobic drills. They can be effective while making a point. “The biggest thing it does is command attention,” said Blues assistant Mike Kitchen, the “bag skate” drill sergeant. “A lot of it is about discipline. It makes you mentally tough.” 2003 Bruce Dowbiggin Calgary Herald (Alberta, Canada) (Nov. 6) “Sutter delivers warning: Trouble is, what will coach do next time Flames falter” p. F1: Hockey players call it a “bag skate.” An early-morning practice during which a cranky coach skates his disinterested team till the players are bagged. Out of gas. Exhausted. A bag skate is a great attention getter for a coach who thinks his team has lost its focus. 2006 Luke Decock News & Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina) (Oct. 9) “Canes fighting mad”: When Laviolette’s postgame comments Saturday included the phrase “we’re kidding ourselves,” the Hurricanes didn’t need a magnifying glass to read between the lines.…It couldn’t have been any clearer if the ice had been painted black Sunday: Good morning. This is your wake-up call for the season. Sunday’s so-called “bag skate,” as it’s known in hockey parlance, now takes a place in recent Hurricanes history with the December 2001 practice behind closed doors at the RecZone that helped turn the Canes’ season around on their way to the Stanley Cup finals and the one in Los Angeles in February 2003 that helped that season spiral out of control when Craig MacDonald collapsed and Jeff O’Neill left the ice screaming curses at then-coach Paul Maurice.

Posted 12 Oct 06 | Permalink | Tell a Friend